Of Blood and Metal

Amerdriak stumbled for a moment and her pet Gorgia ran to her side to help her to her feet. She looked back into the dark forest of glowing silver trees and translucent black and purple orchids. The moon beams shined through the canopy of the forest illuminating everything around her, there was little that she could do to hide from her pursuers, but she tried her best to make a quick escape; leaving behind as little of a trail to track as she knew how.

It was all she could do after infuriating a clan of spider people known as the Araneae. Half human, half arachnid, these creatures lived in the Old Mire Woods, south of the city of Renira where she lived. Amerdriak was an orc huntress who was filling a work order to slay a nearby Araneae called Mezmir. Mezmir was an Araneae assassin that pissed off the wrong political figure in a Reniran Elite circle. They contracted with a clan called the Mythril Sabres and put a hit out on Mezmir. For what purpose, Amerdriak did not know, but she had fulfilled her contract, only not as subtly as she had hoped, for she was no rogue, but a dangerous and lethal hunter. With her deadly bow Heklok and her trusty bobcat Gorgia, who marked her kill for her in the darkness, she had put a spiked orc crafted arrow between Mezmir’s eyes.

Gorgia was a mythical pet that was kind and loyal to Amerdriak, but deadly and unforgiving to their enemies. She hid behind a thick stump awaiting a tracker behind them. As the Araneae scout parted a pair of bushes and poked it’s eight eyes through the brush, Gorgia leaped at the scout's throat. The bobcat shredded the Araneae’s throat to pieces while clawing at its eyes.

A thick putrid green ichor poured out onto the forest floor as the pair turned and made their escape further into the mire.

Amerdriak was very well trained by her master Orgrah, a wise old huntress that lived high up on a mountain cliff, who spent her time training hunter’s and warriors in the ways of the sword and bow. As well as how to track, hunt, and slay just about any monster that walked the Abyssal Planes. But Orgrah had taken a special interest in Amerdriak who was of a noble clan of orcs that Orgrah belonged to as well. It was rare indeed for there to exist orcs that were good and that had traditions and a hierarchy of nobility. They did exist though, and their necessity for training and honing their skills were paramount to their survival, especially in a world that hated orcs. Even their own race were out to kill the Kragg Clan.

So Orgrah spent many moon and star cycles training Amerdriak one on one, giving her all the attention that she needed in order to become a master archer and swordsman. Amerdriak often thought back fondly on her master's teachings and the time they spent together on the Mountain of Solidity. One night as they ate supper sitting under the stars on the cliffside by an open flame Orgrah instructed Amerdriak in her hunter philosophy. “You must steel yourself from the battles that you will fight, for they will be many. Take care of your mind and your heart, as the world would see it stripped from your body and left for the vultures. Always protect your thoughts first, and above all don’t let anyone think for you. It always leads to damnation and ruin.”

“Yes, master,” Amerdriak would say listening intently.

An Araneae cut down a branch that concealed Amerdriak and Gorgia’s hiding place. Then it yelled out to its companions in its wicked Araneae tongue that it had found their location.

Amerdriak stumbled backwards—scratched from all the silver branches and tired from running—into an opening in the woods. She drew two short swords as six Araneae approached her out of the shadows. 

They encircled her as she bent down into a back stance. Their pincers dripped saliva and their infuriated eyes glistened in the light of the moon, all forty-eight eyes shimmering red and silver in the night. Three of the spider humanoids, each held long cruel looking swords, the fourth held a maniacal looking mace, the fifth had a crude rigged spear, and the final largest Araneae; was clad in a tainted gray and black metal suit. The metal armor covered its chest and wrapped around each of its appendages, fortifying them in sharp metal points at the end, it clawed into the dirt as it walked, leaving holes in the ground and shredding tree bark as it thrashed into the clearing. Each of the spiders were intent on gaining revenge for her attack on their clan.

The evil spiders rushed at Amerdriak and Gorgia and they rushed back. Amerdriak dove over the spider with the spear and rolled across the forest floor only to find her feet—to the back and to the left of the creature. She cut with both swords in an X and slashed off one of its palps, then continuing the motion, facing away from the Anareae, she severed the beast's cephalothorax from its abdomen. It screeched and wriggled on the ground as Amerdriak faced one of the spiders with a long sword.

Gorgia ran underneath an Anareae and was clawing at its underside, the spider creature moved to the side, turning its sword upside down and thrusted it into the earth. The long deep cut scathed Gorgia in the stomach and she hissed and retreated.

“No!” Amerdriak yelled as she decapitated a foe.

Then she turned and threw one of her short swords through the air. Perfectly balanced, the sword stuck in between an opening in the Anareae’s leather cuirass, right between where the creatures shoulder muscle connected with its chest. It screeched a loud ear-piercing cry of defeat as it stumbled backwards and curled up like an arachnid into the shadows.

Gorgia writhed in pain on the forest floor as blood gushed from her wound. Amerdriak tried to run to her side but was cut off by another long sword wielding Araneae. She jumped over the beast's attack and recovered her short sword from the ground and clashed steel with the creature.

Gorgia curled into a ball on the ground and began glowing dark ruby red like a small sun at twilight. The bobcat was changing, for mythical creatures of the Abyssal Planes were known to evolve into more ferocious creatures, given a certain amount of time and experience in battle. And that is what occurred on the forest floor of the Old Mire Woods. Gorgia was shifting and changing shape, in a cloud of red smoke and ectoplasm, the bobcat became larger and more formidable. It stood on all four of its legs rising from the ground as Amerdriak leaped onto her opponent. The orc huntress inserted both of her razor-sharp blades into the Anareae’s chest and then backflipped into a feline-like repose next to her pet.

The bobcat shed off the glowing light and returned to the present lapse of time, it stood as tall as Amerdriak, still a bobcat but with more ancient looking stripes. The cat’s eyes burned ruby red and short curved horns had sprouted from the forefront of her cat ears. And most notably an enormous set of red and black bat wings had grown from her back. The bobcat had evolved into a Lucifian Lynx.

“Run, Gorgia!” the two turned tail and ran as the last two Araneae chased after them.

They rushed past trees and ducked under black and silver branches. Amerdriak looked back and saw the metal clad Araneae running as fast as it could in its metal suit, but it was no match for the huntress's speed. The mace wielding Araneae suddenly cried out as it tripped over a rope—a trap that Amerdriak had set on her way into the woods. Three lethal spears were triggered and came up to meet the Aranaea diagonally, spearing it in its throat, its cephalothorax, and its abdomen. It died almost instantly.

Amerdriak and Gorgia could hear the gushing of a waterfall as they broke through the silver forest. Gorgia didn’t look back as the lynx leaped off of the cliff and spread its long leathery bat wings in an aerial dive. Amerdriak did the same, only she pivoted in mid-air drawing her bow and knocking an arrow.

The metal armored Anareae looked over the cliffside at the huntress and yelled in orcish, “Ukul vrosh ekniri!” which in Amerdriak’s tongue meant, you can’t run forever!

She let loose the arrow that whirred past the Araneae’s face and cut two of the creature's eyes. Then she turned and mounted Gorgia in mid-air in a daring escape as the two flew over the Abyssal Planes into the night sky.